"India
has taken a position that it considers white asbestos as a hazardous
substance. Mining of asbestos is technically banned in India. Trade
in asbestos waste (dust and fibres) is also banned. Now government
should take the next logical step and phase out asbestos use."

Gopal Krishna

Even as the Indian Government has publicly revealed that it does not
favour carcinogenic chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) mineral
fibre anymore, a consortium of Indian investors have successfully
lobbied hard to rejuvenate the asbestos mines in Quebec, Canada. The
mineral fibre has pre-dominantly been used in construction industry
before its incurable disease causing nature came to light.
Government of India must resist efforts of Canadian government to
dump the cancer causing fibres of white asbestos on to present and
future generation of Indians.

Unmindful of the epidemic potential of asbestos related diseases,
Provincial Government of Quebec's decision to grant a loan of $58
million to one of the country's two remaining asbestos mines has
outraged environmental, health, labour and human rights
organizations.

This loan will cover more than two-thirds of the cost of renovating and
reopening the Jeffrey asbestos mine in Asbestos town of Quebec. Ignoring
the moral responsibility to save fellow human beings in India from
exposure to asbestos fibres, Quebec government has chosen to be act like
a an impediment t o global cancer control as white asbestos causes lung
cancer.

Disregarding the concerns of doctors and asbestos victims, this effort
will also be funded by private investors, led by Balcorp Ltd., who will
add another $25 million. As per figures available, Canada exported
750,000 tons of asbestos in 2006. India has been one of the major
importers of Canadian asbestos. The Quebec government loan is aimed at
reviving one of Canada’s last asbestos mines, assuring exports of
carcinogenic fibres for another 20 years.

It is noteworthy that use of asbestos is banned in some 58 countries
including the European Union, Japan, Australia and others. Due to lack
of awareness of its health hazards white asbestos has been used in India
but ministry after ministry is waking up its dangers and realize that
safe and controlled use of asbestos is impossible as is indicated by the
misinformation campaign of the global asbestos industry.

ToxicsWatch Alliance (TWA) urges the Quebec government to reconsider its
decision and cancel the loan guarantee and help the asbestos disease
affected communities in the developing countries. This decision of the
Quebec government gives the impression that in Canada ether asbestos
industry and the government are one entity or government is subservient
to the lust for blind profit at human cost.

Government of India took the right step on June 21, 2011 when at a
meeting of UN’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC)
Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in
International Trade disassociated itself from Canada and other asbestos
producing countries in order to get white asbestos listed in the PIC
list of hazardous materials. The listing requires would-be exporters of
asbestos to warn governments of developing nations on what is being
brought to their countries. It was unbecoming of Canadian government to
block the efforts to list it under the parochial influence of Quebec
asbestos interests.

"The Government of India is considering the ban on use of chrysotile
asbestos in India to protect the workers and the general population
against primary and secondary exposure to Chrysotile form of Asbestos."
It has noted that "Asbestosis is yet another occupational disease of the
Lungs which is on an increase under similar circumstances warranting
concerted efforts of all stake holders to evolve strategies to curb this
menace". A concept paper by Union Ministry of Labour revealed this at
the two-day 5th India-EU Joint Seminar on “Occupational Safety and
Health” on 19th and 20th September, 2011. (http://www.labour.nic.in/lc/Background%20note.pdf)

Members of Indian National Congress led United Progressive Government,
Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs must act to make India free of
carcinogenic asbestos fibres by paying heed to what Union Environment
Ministry’s Vision Statement that says, “Alternatives to asbestos may be
used to the extent possible and use of asbestos may be phased out”. (http://moef.nic.in/divisions/cpoll/envhealth/visenvhealth.pdf)
It should respond to National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)‘s notice
issued to it. NHRC issued a notice to the central and states government
in the matter of incurable asbestos related diseases on July 6, 2011 and
reiterated on June 5, 2012. (http://nhrc.nic.in/dispArchive.asp?fno=2334)

Government of India should also set up a compensation fund to provide
compensation to the asbestos victims by making asbestos companies liable
for knowingly exposing workers, consumers and citizens to asbestos
fibres. It may be noted U.S., Dow Chemicals Company has set aside $2.2
billion in compensation fund to address future asbestos-related
liabilities arising out of acquisition of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC)
and its Indian investments in 1999. If Dow can assume responsibility for
asbestos induced illnesses among victims in USA, why then it should deny
responsibility towards the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy and its
continuing toxic legacy? UCC formerly made products containing asbestos,
and UCC once mined asbestos for sale to customers. The mine of the UCC
was sold in 1985. Hundreds of thousands of people have sued asbestos
companies that made products containing asbestos. Many manufacturers of
asbestos-containing products are bankrupt as a result of asbestos
litigation.

India has taken a position that it considers white asbestos as a
hazardous substance. Mining of asbestos is technically banned in India.
Trade in asbestos waste (dust and fibres) is also banned. Now government
should take the next logical step and phase out asbestos use. Government
of India should take immediate steps to ban this killer fibre to save
the present and future citizens of the country from incurable lung
diseases. After central ministries of environment, labour, mines and
chemicals underlined the hazardous nature of asbestos and asbestos based
products, ministry of railways has announced phasing out of asbestos
based roofing materials from all the railway platforms in India.

It is noteworthy that a massive protest against an upcoming white
asbestos based plant of Kolkata based Utkal Asbestos Limited (UAL)
Industries Ltd at Goraul, Vaishali, Bihar on June 14, 2012 has forced
the district administration to order stoppage of construction work till
further orders. A tripartite meeting on June 30, 2012 with the asbestos
company, villagers and the district officials failed to satisfy the
villagers. TWA was present at the meeting. In the face of global,
national and local movement against such plants which are referred to as
Time Bombs for lungs, the construction of lung cancer causing white
asbestos plants in Vaishali, Madhubani, West Champaran and production in
Bhojpur districts only shows that Bihar Government has adopted Ostrich
policy. Dr Barry Castleman's world's foremost expert on asbestos has
sent a letter to Bihar Chief Minister asking to side with the villagers
and not with the management of the asbestos factory to prevent public
health disaster.

Earlier, Kerala State Human Rights Commission made three recommendations
banning use of asbestos roofs in its order dated January 31, 2009. The
recommendations are: “a) The State Government will replace asbestos
roofs of all school buildings under its control with country tiles in a
phased manner. b) The Government will take steps to see that the schools
run under the private management also replace the asbestos roofs with
country tiles by fixing a time frame. c) The Government should see that
in future no new school is allowed to commence its functions with
asbestos roofs.” Notably, after 2 years of struggle of villagers and all
the left and socialist parties in opposition, Bihar State Human Rights
Commission announced that the white asbestos plant that was under
construction in Chainpur-Bishunpur village, Jakhra Sheikh Panchyat,
Marwan block of Muzaffarpur has now been wound up. All State Human
Rights Commissions are likely to initiate steps to make their states
asbestos free by taking cognisance of the above facts.

Not only in Bihar, villagers are protesting against the proposed
hazardous asbestos cement roofing factory at Naagaon-Lebidi villages,
Sohella Block, Bargarh district, Odisha. The company M/s Viswakarma
Roofings Ltd. intends to establish 150,000 tonnes per annum of asbestos
cement sheets manufacturing project. In Sambalpur’s Parmanpur village in
Odisha too villagers are agitating against the hazardous asbestos based
factory of Visaka Asbestos Industries. It is noteworthy that Visaka
Industries was promoted as a joint venture between G Vivekanand (a
Member of Parliament from Indian National Congress) and the Andhra
Pradesh Industrial Development Corporation.

Such hazardous plants are being protested against in other States like
Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh as well. Environmental groups in
Himachal are against the setting up of lung cancer causing asbestos
based plant at Trilokpur Road in Kheri village of Nahan Tehsil in
Sirmaur district. They are demanding asbestos free State. A fact finding
team visited Ramco Asbestos Industries plant in Maksi, Madhya Pradesh in
July 2011 and found that workers were working with Russian asbestos with
any protection from the killer fibres of white asbestos. Another
similar team visited four asbestos units near Vijayawada in August 2011
to take stock of the situation at the sites of Visakha Industries
Limited, Jujjuru village, Veerulapadu Mandal, Krishna district,
Hyderabad Industries Ltd, IDA in Kondapalli, Ramco Industries Ltd in
Ibrahimpatnam and proposed factory site of Sahyadri Industries Ltd in
Narasimharaopalem in Andhra Pradesh. The team found that villagers were
never informed about the incurable diseases caused by exposure from
asbestos fibres. The team interacted with former workers of asbestos
factories. The workers informed that they were made to give written
undertaking that the company will not be responsible for their health
after they quit the job. Some of the members of the fact finding team
like Dr Babu Rao, a Hyderabad based chemical scientist had raised
objections at the public hearing of the asbestos plant of Sahyadri
Industries Ltd which has been recorded in the official minutes on April
21, 2011. The team met a former worker who was sick from asbestos
exposure near Visakha Asbestos plant at Jujjuru but he never got any
treatment beyond routine medicines. Unmindful of human cost of such
factories there was a public hearing for expansion of Visakha’s plant on
June 6, 2012 amidst protest.

Undermining the fact that use of asbestos may lead to epidemics, new
factories are coming up in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh (UP). In UP’s
Raebarely, the white asbestos based plant of Visaka Industries reveals
that business enterprises have misled political parties like Indian
National Congress, the central and state government into ignoring ban on
it by almost all the developed countries.

It is quite disturbing that asbestos cement based building materials are
being used in the Union Rural Development Ministry’s Indira Awas Yojna.
Central government’s Rs 10, 000 crore worth annual housing flagship
scheme endangers the rural poor as it is using carcinogenic asbestos
sheets to keep the cost below the ceiling of Rs 45,000 per house under
the scheme.

Government of India should resist asbestos industry’s influence in
public interest and desist from signing the "Comprehensive Economic
Partnership Agreement" (CEPA) with Canada that allows the export of
cancer causing Canadian asbestos to India. The New Democratic Party (NDP)
of Canada, the official Opposition party has revealed the efforts of
Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper government’s to eliminate trade
tariffs on exports of lethal Canadian asbestos to India. “It is a
disgrace that the Harper government has opposed the global effort to ban
this substance,” NDP said in a release dated December 5, 2011. (Reference:http://www.ndp.ca/press/harper-government-plans-to-increase-asbestos-exports-to-india)

TWA salutes the stance of NDP with regard to asbestos trade. Indian
political parties like Indian National Congress should learn something
from NDP. Government of India should pay heed to the World Health
Assembly Resolution which requested WHO to carry out a global campaign
for the elimination of asbestos-related diseases. The resolution of ILO
in June 2006 stated, “the elimination of the future use of asbestos and
the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place
are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure
and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths." How can
such glaring scientific and medical facts be ignored?

While it is quite alarming that Baljit Chadha, President, Montreal based
Balcorp Ltd secured loan from Quebec government on June, 29, 2012 in the
aftermath of the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and
Stephen Harper on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Mexico. This
appears to reveal the tremendous influence of Chrysotile asbestos cement
products manufacturers association in India, global asbestos industry in
general and Canadian asbestos industry in particular.

In 2011-12, union budget, the Finance Minister had announced that those
affected by asbestos related diseases will be covered under Rashtriya
Swasthya Bima Yojna. Given the fact that asbestos related diseases are
preventable but incurable, this is hardly sufficient. The only way to
prevent the deadly diseases is to prevent mining, trade, manufacturing
and use of all forms of asbestos and asbestos based products.